Symbols In The Skin
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: One moment Four is feeling the agonising pain in his ankle, the next thing he's waking up in a hospital bed with Henri accused of child abuse.
1. Four - The Second Scar

**I just finished reading The Power of Six last week, even though I've been meaning to read it for over a year x In the end I decided to write this - please read and review to tell me what you think x**

**Disclaimer: I don't anything - it all belongs to 'Pittacus Lore'**

It was just like another day when the burning started. He'd been in the middle of the spelling bee - the worst, most public place to be - when the pain had started, when the fire had started to wrap around his leg.

It was mild at first, barely noticeable, but it grew stronger and stronger, until it went from uncomfortable to agonising in less than fifteen minutes. He had long since stopped paying attention to the spelling bee, instead just concentrating on not passing out.

He bit down on his lip to keep himself from screaming until he tasted blood, copper and salt. Number Four tried hard to keep the pain from showing on his face, but even so he knew he was wearing a lop-sided grimace of agony.

The pain's intensity increased to a crescendo, stronger than anything he'd felt in years - not since One had died. And that was why this was happening - another of them was being killed. Right now, one of the very last few of his people was being slaughtered, and all of them would have a scar to show for it.

He knew that by the end of the day he would have a second scar encircling his ankle, the reminder of the death of another of his people tattooed onto his flesh. The Elders had been cruel to mark their failures in this way.

Before he'd fully realised the burning increased further and when Four looked down at his leg he was unsurprised to see the trouser leg smoking, the smell of singed fabric wafting into the air. Bursts of light shone through the tears, a beacon of the last Lorien lost.

After that Four lost his own battle with the pain and blacked out, remembering nothing more than the comfort of the cold wooden floor against his leg.

* * *

When he woke up it was to machines beeping and doors opening and closing and to the slight tremor of pain in his leg, but far less than as it had been formed.

He opened his eyes.

He was in a hospital bed. He'd never been in one before - never been in a hospital even - but he recognised it from some of the TV shows he watched - the ones that Henri let him see. It was very white and very clean, completely sterile. Four could smell the disinfectant in the air, and his nose twitched slightly.

Just then, a nurse came bustling in, with a matronly air and stern look at him as he reached up to start unplugging things.

"Don't touch that!" She told him.

"Where am I?" He asked.

"You're in the hospital dearie."

"What happened?" He already knew the answer, but he needed to know what they knew. This was bad. This was very, _very_ bad.

"You had some very bad scarring around your ankles - some of which looked very recent. We wouldn't normally keep you in for that, or give you a bed, but you hit your head very hard on the floor when you collapsed."

"Where's Henri?"

An odd look came over the nurse's face, something hard and pitying before she turned away to start fiddling with the machines. Their annoying beeping quickly ceased. "Don't worry dear. He's not coming in here?"

"He's not?" Four's choice trembled, unsure as to why they wouldn't let him in.

"He'll never hurt you again sweetheart."

"Hurt me?"

The nurse gave him a warm smile. "Don't worry. You'll be safe."

"Hurt me?"

The nurse seemed puzzled by his confusion. "Well those burns on your leg were very recent, and it wasn't like they happened in school. You haven't been out or to any of your friends houses, so we know that it must have been your father who did this." With that she started muttering derisively under her breath, things the Four caught with his sharp ears, but hadn't particularly wanted to.

Four shook his head frantically. "No it wasn't!"

She patted his hand. "It's alright dear. You don't have to lie about it anymore. Now why don't we see if I can't find your doctor?" She bustled back out again.

"But..."

He had barely been alone for ten minutes before Henri himself walked into the room and settled on the end of the bed, leaning over to give him a hug. Four relaxed slightly, knowing that he was safe.

"What's happening?" He asked, his voice slightly muffled by Henri's chest.

"We're going home as soon as possible, because despite their ridiculous theories they don't have any evidence. Then we're packing up and moving on."

Four sighed. "Where to?"

"I don't know yet. Maybe Texas. Or Miami? Where do you want?"

"I don't mind. Somewhere nice," Four told his 'father'.

Henri ruffled his hair. "Will do." he got up, the hospital bed creaking as he did so. "I need to get started on the paperwork, both to get you out of here and the move. I'll be back later, okay kid?"

Four nodded, watching the door close. The nurse walked back in, looking slightly sour.

"Are you alright?" She didn't call him dearie this time.

"I'm fine thank you ma'am." Henri had always raised him to be polite.

She gave him another look but Four simply settled down in the bed, snuggling down in the covers and closing his eyes. He couldn't wait to get out of here if they were all going to look at him like that. Henri would never hurt him.

It was times like this that he wished he could tell them all what he really was, what the scars really were.

But in the meantime he'd take a map.


	2. Four - The First Scar

**Someone suggested that I do some for the other scars, so I decided to x Please tell me what you think of this one - it's much shorter than the last x Review with suggestions for other scars x**

The first time it happened he hadn't known what was happening.

He'd known what _could_ happen, what _might _happen, but he hadn't expected anything like this. Not like this.

It was lucky it had been a Saturday, Four home from school. He had screamed so loudly from the burning pain, that it was lucky the nearest house was half a mile away. As it was all of the birds cawed and took flight, scattering into the forest that surrounded that particular house of theirs.

The fire had crept up his ankles, like a snake, coiling around the limb and squeezing tight. Pain so intense he blacked out, though he could still feel it when he awoke hours later, and his fingers didn't cease trembling until the next day.

His Cêpan, Henri, wrapped his arms around him, holding him tight, and both of them stared shook as they stared at the brand, knowing what it meant.

One was dead.

Four was one step closer to being next.

They had been found.


	3. Four - The Third Scar

**I got the film for this yesterday, which inspired this chapter :) Please read and reivew xx**

The third scar had come at the beach. He'd been swimming with his friends, showing off for the girls. He'd never had a girlfriend before but the people on this planet seemed to go through them like tissues.

It was odd. Back on Lorien it wasn't like that - most people mated once and for life.

This planet was odd.

But he tried anyway, choosing to follow Earth customs instead of Lorien tradition. After all he was on Earth now, not Lorien, and Lorien was long gone. Nothing remained of his people, only nine children, three of which were already dead.

There was no point holding on to those traditions.

Instead he chose to impress the girls, flirting and teasing.

Until the pain started.

No matter how many times he experienced it, it never got any easier. He gasped in pain, a mouthful of water swallowed into his lungs, until there was fire in his chest as well as his leg.

He could see the light glowing, illuminating the water like it was on fire - just like his ankle was. The light shone brighter, the pain intensity increasing, and it was only his prior experience that kept him in check and stopped him from screaming out loud.

He swam for the shore as quickly as he could, taking longer with the slow agony burning its way through him.

The one thing he'd learnt by now was that he needed to be alone for this.


	4. Six - The First Scar

**I decided to do Six next, because I really like her :) Please read and review x**

The first scar that Six had gotten had appeared halfway down a dusty old road in Alabama. Her Cêpan, still alive back then, had swerved when Six had started to scream and almost crashed into something, Six couldn't tell you what.

She had then pulled over on the side of the road, narrowly avoiding an on-coming truck, and taken one look at the smoking hem on Six's trouser leg before driving off, further away from other people, rather than towards.

They had driven for a good few more minutes, the pain increasing faster and faster.

Six had clamped her lips shut, feeling the blood rise to the surface. The agony of the fire burnt her and she tried to told back her screams.

The pair of them finally pulled up to an abandoned car park, with only three other buildings inside. Her Cepan breathed a sigh of relief.

And Six shrieked.


	5. Seven - The Second Scar

Marina is only new to the Convent when she gets her second scar, but she is scared. She knows the folly of running out during Mass, but she can't get caught with the brands. She and Adelina will be thrown out and neither of them have any other place to go.

As it is, Adelina has already garnered a fair amount of respect from the Sisters, and such any appeasement from her is more likely to be accepted. To find Marina's hem on fire and reveal the scars underneath is to have them both thrown onto the streets as heretics or liars or whatever they want to call them.

Marina already knows that she is not particularly welcome in the Convent, and as holy as they are they would be grateful of the opportunity to get rid of this odd, insolent little girl, even if they don't want to get rid of her caretaker.

Adelina sees her rush out and follows, and the Sisters let her because they know she has gone after Marina. They don't know that it's not for punishment.

They make it all the way to the room Adelina shares with two other Sisters, only they're both still down at Mass so the pair are fine. It's still safer than Marina's own room, because Camilla hasn't reported for Mass and so could be skulking around in the dorm rooms.

The pain, which has had her hobbling down the corridors once she was out of sight, sharpens abruptly and she cringes in agony, keeping her mouth shut. She can't afford to be heard and in a draughty place like this everything echoes.

She must keep silent.

So she does.

She screws her eyes shut against the pain and tries not to scream. As the pain dims, she is panting heavily and her exhausted eyes flutter closed, feeling Adeline squeeze her hand gently.

She already knows that when she looks tomorrow, there will be a circle of red spiralling up her shin and that another of her people has died.


	6. Nine - The Third Scar

Nine thinks he is hallucinating when the third scar comes. He is so used to the pain that it barely registers, and it isn't until he looks down and sees the light illuminating his ankle that he realises another of his people has died at the hands of his captors.

Despite that, he still thinks he is hallucinating, because when he closes his eyes and even when he opens them again, he sees the forest and the running and feels the fear.

He sees Three die, and it hurts like his own death.

He has been close to death before, here in this cell, but not like that. It hasn't felt like that before.

But the remains of his people, his family, are feeling like that.

He will not give up. He will fight and escape, and kill every last one of the Mogadorian's so they can all live peacefully again.

That's all they want.

They never started this war.


	7. Seven - The Third Scar

**Sorry this one is so short x Please read and review anyway though x**

The next scar to come is a long time after they enter the Spanish Convent, when Adelina is pretending that their planet is just a long forgotten dream, something fond but unreal. Marina can't run to her this time, because if she tries Adelina will just send her away telling her to stop pretending, no matter the scar burning into Marina's skin.

This time Marina must do it alone because she can't rely on Adelina this time. Adeline has forgotten, or at least she's pretending she has.

And somehow that hurts more than the scar branding itself to her leg.


	8. Ten - The Second Scar

**I hope you like Ten - I wasn't going to do her, but I changed my mind :)**

She's the one that no one thought survived and because of that she's the most protected. Because if they don't know she's alive, they can protect her so that they never know.

Because of that, the second that light starts glowing around her ankle she is rushed away, away from people and civilisation so that no one knows she exists.

She is used to not existing.

Even the others from Lorien have no idea she survived.

It makes her feel lonely sometimes, not that she cares _right_ _now_, with the pain shooting up her leg. But she wishes that she meet with at least one other of her people - just so she wouldn't feel so alone.

Just so that she knew it was all worth it.


	9. Six - The Second Scar

Six had already lost her Cêpan when the second scar started coming through and she hardly noticed the difference in her agony. She still had to stay out of sight - it wouldn't do for the natives to see her glowing after all - but that was easy when you had invisibility.

Only it didn't seem to work when the scars were coming through - something that took longer for her to realise than it should have.

It wasn't until several hours later that she realised and within minutes she had upped and left the town, barely stopping to pack the most important things.

She tried to never rely on her invisibility again - she'd learnt her lesson.


	10. Two - The First Scar

**I decided to do Two, as well :)**

She was two. She would be the second one to know that they were after her, and the first one to _know_ it. And know it she did, when the light started glowing around her ankle, leaving a circular scar that reminded her of home. The burning hurt like nothing she'd ever experienced before, even the loss of Lorien.

Her Cêpan explained what it meant, before she died, but she already knew that.

One was dead, the first of their people that escaped to die.

Two was next.

She moved across three continents and ran faster than she ever had before.


	11. Seven - The First Scar

**This one is over double the length of yesterday's, so I hope you like it x Please read and review to tell me what you think though :)**

When Marina gets the first scar she and Adelina (though she is not yet Adelina) are still running, hundreds of miles away from the Spanish Convent they will end up in. In fact they are in Brazil, learning an odd mix of Spanish, Portuguese and something else that will aid them when they finally end up in Spain.

There, no one asks questions because no one wants to hear the answers. If you hear the answers then you can be incriminated, so it's just better not to ask, even if it happens to be your father or brother.

Because of that Adelina doesn't drive them too far out, because it's too easy to get lost in the thick Brazilian rainforest that surrounds the town they have made their home. It is small, but not too small as to go unnoticed, though she and Adelina will hardly be missed. Adelina explains was the pain is, that this means the Mogadorians are here on Earth.

The pain hurts like nothing else she's ever experienced but she knows that no one will ask and that tomorrow the pair of them will be moving on so she shrieks.


	12. Six - The Third Scar

Six was far from who she had used to be by the time she got the third scar. The pain from the death of her Cêpan had dulled, like the edge of a rusty blade rather than the dagger edge of a knife. It wasn't like there was salt in the wound anymore, keeping it open and fresh and bleeding.

But she was so used to pain by now that her ankle didn't trouble her at all, and it was only when she went for a shower that she realised yet another scar had wrapped its way around her ankle.


	13. One - No Scars

She's One, so she doesn't get a scar, nor a warning - or at least, not a big one.

The first warning she gets that they have been found is when her Cêpan is murdered brutally, her body barely recognisable by the time One finds her.

It makes her feel sick to her stomach, that they toy with her and her people like this, like playthings.

But there is something even bigger at stake - they have been _found._

_ They_ are here. They are here, on Earth - the Mogadorians know where they are and they have found them.

Well, her Cêpan had always made it quite clear it was a possibility, even if it is now far too real for her to want to believe it.

One knows that running is no good now, they knew where she is, but she'll do it anyway.

So she does, and she starts to think it works - until she finds himself running through the forest, hunted by the creatures that destroyed her home and her family.

When they kill her she doesn't feel anything, except a slight tingle on her ankle, like the knife that has been driven through her chest is being dragged down her leg.


	14. Ten - The First Scar

When she gets her first scar she cries. She's barely older than a child and even when her Cêpan explains what's happening, she doesn't stop crying because it _hurts_. It doesn't matter that her people are dying because right now _she's_ hurting. She'll feel guilty for that later, but not right now.

Right now all she feels is pain.

And she cries, her Cêpan holding her tight because it _hurts_.

It's not until later, when the scar has fully formed around her shin that she starts to feel guilty for what she thought.

And then she feels hate for the Mogadorians.


	15. Three - The Second Scar

Three supposes that part of acclimatising to Earth is learning some of their traditions, and the place in Africa where he lived was extremely superstitious. His Cêpan hadn't encouraged it, but even he had been party to some of the villages older traditions including the death rites, as when he had died.

Three had been glad for that.

He missed Lorien, though he could barely remember it, and his people (and family), but this village had been starting to feel like home.

Until he had to run again.

Running, it was always running. If it wasn't the only thing he had left, he'd have stopped by now.

Because they will catch him anyway.

That's the only thing he can think when the second scar starts to form on his leg.

Well, he'll carry on running, but not too far. They won't make him leave this home as well.

Perhaps this time he'll try Kenya.


	16. Five - The Third Scar

Five has spent a lot of her life on the road, perhaps even more so than that of her other escapees. Her Cêpan is perhaps the most paranoid of them all, and the least likely to let them get caught.

She's spent her whole life running from an enemy she can barely remember.

And she just wants it to stop, because not even running can let you get away - her now dead Cêpan is testament to that.

She just doesn't want to run anymore, because she's tired.

But she doesn't give in either, she's a fighter.

And fight she will, because Three has just died and she has the battle scar to prove it.


	17. Three - The First Scar

The first place Three had stayed on Earth was in Australia. He had liked the heat, and the outback provided plenty of cover to escape if it was necessary. Sure, it wasn't the best plan - if you were noticed then it would be harder for _them_ to do anything in the open - but they made the best of it.

They couldn't put too many of themselves in the same place, could they - he knew that Five and Seven had both started off in Europe and Two was probably still in South America.

It was there he learnt his appreciation for culture, the legends the Aboriginals told of their history and their people.

It reminded him of home.

And so did the scar that had just formed around his ankle, telling him it was time to move on.


	18. Eight - The Third Scar

He gets used to the cold when living in the Himalayas. It's always cold there, no matter where he is, unless it's boiling hot.

It reminds him of England, either one extreme or the other, never somewhere comfortably in between.

It's something that remains constant, and it scare him slightly. He can't afford to be comfortable, because then he falls into the trap of believing he is safe.

He isn't safe, not ever, not even when he thinks he is.

He's learnt that lesson the hard way, with the death of his Cêpan at the hands of someone they'd trusted.

He can't afford to feel safe, because then he'll be dead too, just like the third of his people has just died.


	19. Five - The Second Scar

When she first lands on this world she barely remembers anything of her last one.

This is her life now, here on Earth.

She barely remembers her life before - this is the only thing she remembers. And perhaps it's better that way, because if she could remember it then maybe she would miss it more than she already does and she doesn't think she could handle that.

Just like if she'd been older she would miss the others of her kind, the ones scattered on this planet as she is.

Only she doesn't remember them, so she doesn't miss them, and maybe it's better that way the second scar tells her.


	20. Nine - The Second Scar

He gets his second scar when he's just been captured. His Cêpan was already dead, torture after torture, pain after pain, inflicted upon him by his captors.

He thinks that this is just another trick of theirs at first - that they've injected him with something that causes the hallucinations and the pain. That maybe this isn't really real - that it's just in his head - because right now he can't handle this.

But no, this pain is very real, the pain of this cell and it's loneliness, the pain of every one of their dead people, the pain of his now dead family.


	21. Eight - The Second Scar

When he gets his second scar he's in England - in London to be exact, because that's just his luck. He's not there normally, just for this one day, after begging his Cêpan for weeks to let him go.

Eight supposes that this is just proof that his Cêpan was right, not that he wants to admit it.

London, being London, is so busy and crowded that both he and his Cêpan panic as they try to get him somewhere quiet, before the light starts glowing and before he starts screaming.

The best they can manage is a McDonald's toilet, where the light doesn't matter and he has to bite on his lip until he draws blood to stop the screams.


	22. Five - The First Scar

When she gets her first scar she's tired of running. She's been trying to persuade her Cêpan to slow down for months, trying to stop somewhere for more than two months, to stop changing her name every time she leaves town and to stop burning so many bridges.

She's fed up of running, of hiding.

She isn't the kind to run scared, even if she knows that she has to. She makes up for it by standing up for herself wherever they go, even if her Cêpan hates it - it attracts too much attention when she punches the Queen Bee of the school in the face.

And the burn around her ankle that makes her scream is a very good reminder of how bad that is for her.


	23. Eight - The First Scar

When he's on Earth he tries to fit in, because it makes it feel more like home. He never forgets his true home of course, but it's gone now and he can't mourn it forever.

So if he fits in here it might feel more like home and his heart might feel a little less like a hole. He knows it does no good to think like that, but he can't help it.

But this isn't home - this is war. They are running, and hiding and being hunted to their deaths. And making Earth home won't stop that.

The scar on his ankle is the first reminder of that.


	24. Nine - The First Scar

He gets his first scar when he's with his Cêpan, the pair of them running for their lives because if they stop they're dead.

They are in Mexico when he gets the scar, not too far from one of the others. It hurts so he screams, and it's good that they are deep in the rainforest. It burns like nothing else ever has before, the kind of pain he hopes to never experience again.

Only he does.

Next time it's the death of another of his people, accompanied by screams for other reasons, the agony at the torture of his captors.


	25. Ten - The Third Scar

**This might be the last chapter, unless you can tell me if I missed anyone xx**

Ten is been forced to grow up because of the Mogadorians. She has never had a childhood, no time to play. She has spent her life running, changing from guise to guise, changing her age whenever possible to throw them off her trail.

She's never made a sandcastle on a beach, or gone skiing. She's never been to a school for longer than five months, never made a best friend for life. She's never made a memory box, burning every hint of any life she's had as she goes because she's not allowed to leave a trace behind.

She doesn't do that kind of thing, she's too busy running.


End file.
